


I Don't Give A Crap

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother Feels, Brotherly Love, Bunker Fluff, Castiel & Dean Winchester Friendship, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel in the Bunker, Dean-Centric, Demon Cure, Demon Dean, Demon Dean Winchester, Depressed Dean, Depression, Dreams, Facials, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Ghost Mary Winchester, Ghosts, Guilty Dean, Guilty Dean Winchester, Healing, Hearing Voices, Hurt Dean Winchester, METROSEXUAL, Men of Letters Bunker, Nightmares, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Demon Dean, Pretty Dean, Pretty Dean Winchester, Regret, Sick Dean Winchester, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 10:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days after Sam and Castiel cure Dean of his demonic affliction, the hunter newly-returned to humanity falls into a deep depression fueled by the guilt of everything he did as a servant of Hell. He can't make himself get out of bed until he hears the voice of his mother telling him to take care of himself the way she did when he was a little boy. As Dean tries to dip his toes back into life, he stops hiding certain habits he used to hide in fear of appearing girly to others. Is this a new Dean Winchester? Will he truly rejoin humanity?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Give A Crap

Once in a while, Dean stopped giving a crap.

He knew he spent a lot of time being the image of what he was raised to be, which was not to say he faked his way through life, but not everybody needed to know the other facets of his personality either. Very little in Dean's life was actually done for him as he lived to protect Sammy, Cas, and thousand of innocent lives from monsters, Heaven, and Hell.

"Take care of you," Mary Winchester used to tell 4-year-old Dean in the months before she died. It didn't matter if Dean was going outside or going to bed. "Take care of you, Deanny."

It stuck with him, especially as he grew up without his mother and her image in his memory evolved into an ethereal, angelic presence. But in his time under the black sludge of Hell living as a demon, Dean forgot his mother. He forgot his baby, the Impala. He forgot Sammy. He forgot Cas. He forgot to take care of himself, aside from the greed, cruelty, and lust that came so naturally to demons. There was something pure about it like the time he spent in Purgatory. But unlike Purgatory, everything he did came with the clarity of a guiltless creature--selfish to the core. So selfish, in fact, that he even ignored himself.

Dean didn't remember much of the transition. Sometimes flashes of Sammy and Cas came to him in the dark of night as he tried to remember normal sleep cycles. They'd trapped him in a sigil painted on the ceiling--a rookie demon mistake, really--but they'd clearly had a plan. He remembered very little communication between them as they worked, meaning it had been well-rehearsed before they trapped him. The rage in captivity had caused Dean to black out though.

And then the pain came. Think of ripping hot, black tar away from the soul--that was the best way Dean knew to describe it. Vaguely he'd felt Cas' hands on his arm and stroking his hair the way a wild animal might have been placated. The only way to get Dean back, it seemed, had been to peel away the sludgy layer of Hell, but it had peeled away the top layer of his soul too. Every now and then, he'd wake from the blackout to see Cas and Sammy working seamlessly over him. Each time he'd wake, more human emotion bled through. At first, it'd brought out blinding rage until the soul weighed more than the demonic, and then remorse, relief, and uncontrollable wailing had overcome him.

It ended with the deepest sleep of his life. For over a week, he hardly got out of bed except to go to the bathroom and eat everything in the bunker kitchen. Sammy never said a word. Every other day, the pantry magically restocked and Dean knew his brother went back to hustling pool and poker to feed him. Their roles switched. Now Sammy was the big brother.

"Deanny," he heard on a rainy morning a week after the cure. Rattled, his mind echoed again. "Deanny, take care of you."

The memory of his mother seemed to grab him by the wrist and the ankle and dragged him out of the depression that kept him in bed. He grumbled, spitting a few choice words into his pillow, because he knew giving up on life would dishonor his mother. Mary Winchester didn't die so her sons would quit fighting for the good no matter how far they dove into the deep end of Hell.

"Mommy's little angel...." Mary's voice echoed in Dean's mind again.

He couldn't tell if his mother spoke from memory replaying in his thoughts or through some megaphone in Heaven, but it didn't matter. Dishonoring Mary's life and death was still dishonor no matter how he cut it.

Dean flung himself on his back, irritated, and kicked a leg in the air. The comforter flew across the room and crumpled in a heap on the overflowing laundry basket. His limbs felt weirdly heavy and sluggish as he climbed out of bed, but as he shuffled to the dresser, he realized his body ached because he'd lost all of the demonic strength quite suddenly. Walking around so heavy and slow made him look old as he grabbed a purple bathrobe from his closet. It felt better than the green one. Softer. Fluffier. The way his body ached? He didn't care how fruity it looked.

The bathroom took forever to reach. Hugging the wall like a guy with an awful hangover, Dean actually considered crawling to the toilet. The bunker sounded perfectly silent and he knew Sammy and Cas weren't there to help him. Sac up, Winchester.

Taking a leak proved difficult on such wobbly legs but Dean decided to lock his bathroom until he could clean up the spillover once he got his strength back. Making them clean up his mess felt so much more humiliating than needing to be rescued from Hell. He shuffled to the sink, remembering the back of a hammer slung into a wall and boasting to Sammy that he liked the sickness and didn't want to be cured. Of course he felt that way with the demonic power surging through his veins, pumped from his corrupted soul like a separate heart existing without the hangups of guilt and love.

Cold water splashed his face as he bent to the faucet with cupped hands. It woke him up a little bit. Squirting minty green toothpaste on a long-neglected toothbrush seemed new all over again, like the little boy hanging over the sink while his mommy taught him to brush in circles, not side to side.

Sighing once he spit in the sink bowl, Dean finally lifted his eyes to the mirror and examined his own reflection. Hell aged him even more. He needed a haircut, badly. Swollen eyes with deeply rooted wrinkles hooded his green irises, while dry patches made him look like weathered wood peeling away varnish. He recognized the burn of hellfire, not unlike a sunburn, but deeper as if charred from within rather than reddened from outside.

Not taking care of himself went against his mother as much as letting that crippling depression ruin him. The ideas were, in fact, one in the same. Dean swung open the mirrored medicine cabinet door and tossed around boxes of bandages, antiseptic, cold drugs, and sleeping pills. There he found the old mask. Yeah, maybe it was girly, but Dean liked the cooling, tightening sensation and sneaked around with it when Sammy wasn't around. He'd started it because of an old girlfriend back when his father was still alive. Okay, so he used the word "girlfriend" loosely, but still. They'd gotten drunk and she'd giggled her way through giving him a makeover, which ended well for him--she did filthy things to him in the shower later.

"I don't give a crap anymore," Dean muttered to himself as he grabbed a pink braided headband stolen years before and pushed back his shaggy hair with it. He'd been a demon for months and lived to tell the tale. He simply quit caring if his quirky habits came off as weird to other men like Sammy or Cas.

Ten minutes later, a man over six-feet-tall shuffled down the hall in a purple fluffy bathrobe, a stolen pink headband, and a relaxing, cooling green mask hardening on his face. That man had saved thousands of lives over the years. Billions, even, if he took the apocalypse into account. If Dean Winchester liked the occasional face mask, then goddamn it, he was going to use them whenever he pleased.

Walking downstairs stirred Dean's appetite again. He wondered, as he made his way to the kitchen, if he'd ever feel satisfied again or if starvation was left on him like a brand from his demonic existence. Maybe he deserved it after killing so many people. And even thinking about the strippers he'd groped left him sick, yet starving for food. Yes, that was it. The worse he felt about the things he'd done, the more he needed to eat until it hurt his belly. He had control over the food when he didn't even have control over himself. Food made him feel human again. Hunger kept him grounded in necessary human guilt and tethered him to his conscience.

Still, Dean knew better than to eat until he got sick. The last thing he needed was a lingering eating disorder after beating Hell, for shit's sake.

He loaded the coffee maker with one of those expensive flavors that he stashed away behind the cleaning supplies. A chocolate, nutty flavor appealed to him and soon filled the bunker with a warm, rich aroma. Slow relaxation drifted in, yet something in his chest fought it as something shameful. But he stopped and reminded himself that he needed time to recover, to put himself back together again.

Just as Dean's mask began tightening, he found the frying pan and nonstick spray. Apparently, Sammy reorganized his kitchen while he was gone groping strippers and murdering convenience store clerks.

Eggs popped and fried on the stove when Sammy rushed into the kitchen with Cas trailing him. The younger Winchester's shoes squeaked on the old linoleum, stopping so hard, and Cas slammed into his shoulder. Dean threw a glance over his shoulder, smirking at the pair of them through the earthy green color of his face mask.  
"What?" he said to them.

Sammy and Cas stared at him, dumbfounded. They glanced at each other like he might collapse or flash black demon eyes at any second. Low, amused laughter brought Dean back to the eggs, which he flipped before the edges burned.

"Yeah, this is a thing I'm doing now," Dean said to them with a casual shrug. "I don't give a crap anymore, okay?"

"Okay.... Yeah, that's... that's fine. Um, so, you just kinda decided to get out of bed and do a spa day on yourself.... Okay," replied Sam, a hint of amusement edging his tone.

"Yup."

"What is the purpose of the organic material on your face, Dean?" questioned Castiel in his old angelic monotone. It always came out when he didn't understand something, despite his grace slowly bleeding away.

"Relaxation, Cas. Oughta try it sometime," he replied. "Who wants breakfast?"

"You're .... You're okay, right?" Sam pressed.

Dean laughed down at the stove. "Shut up, Sammy."

Silence and then the two idiots shuffled around behind him like they tried to communicate without Dean knowing about it. He let it slide. Maybe life didn't have to be so complicated.

"I think he's back," Castiel commented to no one in particular.


End file.
